[858] Acclamation was retained as a regular form of voting by the army; p. 202; cf. Bernhöft, Röm. Königsz. 153.
[859] Philochorus, 79 b, in Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. i. 396. The condemnation of the generals who fought at Arginusae was voted in the same way; Xen. Hell. i. 7. 9.
[860] Cf. Schröder, Deutsche Rechtsgesch. 16.
[861] It is interesting in this connection that in the Homeric assembly the heralds (κήρυκες), who were a sacerdotal class, kept order; cf. Il. ii. 97 f. In the German assembly the priests with coercive power maintained quiet; Tac. Germ. ii. 3; Schröder, Deutsche Rechtsgesch. 22 f. The Irish assemblies were of religious origin, and maintained some religious features till after the introduction of Christianity; Ginnell, Brehon Laws, 42, 44.
[862] They excluded on the one hand comitia for religious purposes presided over by a political magistrate—for instance, the comitia centuriata under the censor for the lustrum (p. 141)—and on the other the meetings of the people under pontifical presidency for secular business, such as an appeal to the comitia from the pontifical imposition of fines (cf. Livy, xl. 42. 9), the meeting of the plebs under the supreme pontiff for the election of plebeian tribunes after the fall of the decemvirate (Cic. Cornel. in Ascon. 77; Livy, iii. 54. 5, 11), and the meeting of seventeen tribes for the election of sacerdotes. In the three exceptional instances last mentioned the comitia are tributa, which are never calata.
[863] Kindred words are calendae, Calabra, calator. As late as Plautus (Pseud. 1009; Merc. 852; Rud. 335) a common use of calatores was to designate slave messengers; cf. Fest. ep. 38; Corp. Gloss. Lat. ii. 95. 42: δοῦλοι δημόσιοι. This use became obsolete, but the word continued to apply to certain assistants of the sacerdotes; Serv. in Georg. i. 268; Corp. Gloss. Lat. ii. 96. 3; iv. 214. 1; v. 275. 1; 595. 34, 63; 563. 66; CIL. vi. 712, 2053. 5; 2184-90, 3878; x. 1726; also the inscr. recently discovered in the Forum; cf. Holzapfel, in Jahresb. f. Altwiss. 1905. 263, 265 ff.; Warren, in Am. Journ. of Philol. xxviii (1907). 249-72. In all the known instances they were freemen, often freedmen; Saglio, in Daremberg et Saglio, Dict. i. 814. For other citations, see Samter, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iii. 1335 f. They correspond to the lictors of the magistrates.
[864] Varro, L. L. v. 13: “Nec curia Calabra sine calatione potest aperiri.”
[865] Saglio, in Daremberg et Saglio, Dict. i. 814; Humbert, ibid. i. 1375. But the comitia curiata were convoked by lictors according to Gell. xv. 27. 2: “Curiata (comitia) per lictorem curiatum calari, id est convocari”; Theophilus, Paraphr. Inst. ii. 10. 1. Possibly the lictor curiatius (or curiatus; CIL. iii. 6078) should in this case be identified with the calator.
[866] Labeo, in Gell. xv. 27. 1 f.: “Calata comitia esse, quae pro collegio pontificum habentur aut regis aut flaminum inaugurandorum causa; eorum autem alia esse curiata, alia centuriata.” From this statement we learn that the calate assemblies for inaugural purposes were organized either in curiae or in centuries. As “comitia” connotes organization (p. 135), we may be sure that in all calata comitia the people stood in their voting groups. On the centuriate comitia calata, see p. 156.
[867] Varro, L. L. v. 13; vi. 27; Fest. ep. 49; Macrob. Sat. i. 15. 9 f.; Fast. Praenest. Kal. Ian., in CIL. i.² p. 231; Jordan, Top. d. Stadt Rom, I. ii. 51; Rubino, Röm. Verf. 245, n. 1; Lange, Röm. Alt. i. 398 f.; Hülsen, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iv. 1821.